Governor Vetos Parts of Budget Bill
Wyoming Governor Matt Mead Friday complimented lawmakers for their hard work on the supplemental budget bill. That budget, for Fiscal Year 2014, starts on July 1st and will reduce ongoing spending by over 6%. It also eliminates over 130 positions across state government. Governor Mead recommended this cut to the Legislature in response to declining revenue from natural gas – Wyoming’s largest source of revenue. Governor Mead did disagree with parts of the bill and vetoed those parts Thursday. He says one of them dealt with having sufficient funding to fight fires in the coming summer. He says all indications are that this will be a serious fire year once again. Another issue involved language in the bill changing the 2012 policy of sweeping excess monies from the General Fund and Budget Reserve Account into the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account at the end of the biennium. The new language would have allowed for an annual sweep of the money. Governor Mead said the previous policy allowed a good revenue year to balance out a bad year. Legislative leaders say they don’t anticipate a move to override the governor’s vetoes in the legislature.
